Are you familiar with real fish tanks? I am. I used to be a serious fresh water tank hobbyist when I was living in Okinawa. (Note I said hobbyist, not pro.)
It was actually when I was living in Okinawa that I first discovered Aquazone 2 and was SUPER into virtual life games at the time. I mean, obviously otherwise this blog wouldn’t exist.
Anyway, we’re going to be setting up a fish tank in Aquazone 2 today. We aren’t putting any fish in the tank yet, instead we’ll only be putting substrate, accessories and a few plants in.
To start, let’s pick out a tank. This one is going to be using the inspired name Aquarium2 and I’ll be using one of the preset sizes.
Generally speaking, bigger tanks are easier to maintain. A larger volume of water is going to stay relatively clean for longer than a smaller tank would because of the volume of water that a fish would have to actually expel waste, etc. A larger tank is also ideal because it allows you to keep more fish, which gives you a more visually interesting tank.
Now, we do have the option to use Fisherman to make other changes to our tank. It’s a truly wonderful tool that allows you to do things like alter the volume of water in your tanks, do gene splicing experiments, edit your fish’s health and more. However, for this tank, we’re going to be doing a long-play style and we’re going to be introducing the fish in a few real day’s time rather than making any changes with an editor.
Speaking of, let’s consider the fish we want for our tank.
I know that I want this to be a relatively low-maintenance tank. You know what’s a pretty low-maintenance fish? Cat fish. I love me a corydoras. Unfortunately, Aquazone 2 will only show you species information after you’ve added fish to the tank, so I’ve had to add one of each species of fish that I want to add. I’ll be pulling them out of the tank and adding them back in a few days, a few at a time, as planned.
As of typing, I only have 2 types of corydoras available to me, panda cory and leopard cory.
Leopard Catfish stats:
Temperature 20-26C
Condition: Neutral
Keeping: Easy
Breeding: Normal
Panda stats:
Unavailable in-game (pulled from seriouslyfish.com instead)
Temperature 22-25C
Condition: Neutral
Of course, I’m going to want more than just the two types of fish in here. I would also like a royal pleco.
Royal Pleco stats:
Unavailable in-game (pulled from aquariumsource.com instead)
Temperature 22-25C
Condition: Neutral
And finally, we’re going to want some pops of color in our tank. Harlequin tetras and Blue Neon Tetras are good options here since they’re pretty, docile and we can have a whole small school of them. They’ll also balance out the tank visually since the cats will generally prefer the bottom of the tank and tetras prefer the middle level of the tank.
Harlequin Tetra stats:
Temperature 24-27C
Condition: Slightly Acidic, Soft Preferred
Keeping: Easy
Breeding: Slightly Difficult
Blue Neon Tetra stats:
Unavailable in-game (pulled from fishkeepingworld.com instead)
Temperature 21-27C
Condition: Slightly Acidic
Keeping: Easy
Now that we have our stats, we can decide what we want our water to look like.
As far as the temperature goes, we want it no lower than 24 C, and no higher than 25. We can set the heater to 24.5C (about 76F) as a happy compromise for all the fish we’ve selected.
The acidity of the water defaults to 7. We want to push it a little bit closer to the acidic side. Not too much to make any of the fish uncomfortable. We can’t just turn a dial like with the heater though. For this, we actually need to use medicine.
In Aquazone 2, you sometimes need to add medicines and food options to your tank before you can use them. Think of this like you’re stocking up the little shelf below your fish tank. Press the bottom left button (looks like a tank with an arrow going into it) to select the items you need to add. In my case, I need pH down. I’ve added pH up as well in case I need to make any adjustments.
I’ve already removed the fish so I can freely experiment with how much of the ph down I need to add. The instructions call for 20ml per 10 liters of water but it doesn’t say how much this will affect the actual pH of the tank. On the low end, we want it no lower than 6 and no higher than 7. Let’s shoot for 6.5-6.75.
The tank is roughly 64 liters in volume, so that’s 6.4 doses. Let’s round that to 6 doses and add 120 ml of the pH down. There’s no immediate effect, but that’s because the medicine takes time to circulate in the tank. We’ll check on it again tomorrow.
While we’re here, let’s also add some water conditioner to kill the Chlorine in the water. This is also used every time we change the water. Let’s use the minimum dose and do 2ml per 10 liters. We’re rounding that to just 12 ml of the Chlorine Cut. Again, this is going to take some time to circulate in the tank so we’ll check on it again tomorrow.
Finally, let’s get to the fun stuff. Decorations!
Now, for substrates I prefer to decorate with sand, soil or other natural looking substrates. That means I generally avoid using gravel or colorful pebbles in my tanks. I’ll be using stream gravel here. I also like to use wood accessories since, in real life, they can help with the water condition. I don’t think wood in this game has the same effect, but I still like the aesthetic of wood.
Lastly, let’s add a few plants. I may add more later but for now I want to add just a few to help get the tank started. As with the wood, real plants have a benefit in a fish tank but I’m unsure whether they actually do anything within the context of the game. I won’t be adding a background to this tank. Let’s have a look at what we’ve got.
Not a bad start! I’m pleased with where we are so far. I may add some tall plants behind the wooden decorations and do some adjusting later, but for now I’m happy.
All that’s left to do is adjust the light schedule. I’m doing 14 hours on and 10 hours off.
And that’s it! We’ll check on the water condition again tomorrow to make sure that the tank is on the right track. I’ll see you then!
Thanks for reading!
Kez